1st Edition
The Philosophical and Theological Relevance of Evolutionary Anthropology Engagements with Michael Tomasello
This book explores the philosophical and theological significance of evolutionary anthropology and includes diverse approaches to the relationship between evolution, culture, and religion. Particular emphasis is placed on the work of Michael Tomasello, who contributes an opening chapter that tackles the role of religion in his natural history of human thinking and human morality. The first section of the book considers the philosophical foundations of evolutionary anthropology and shows that evolutionary anthropology is open to a multitude of philosophical analyses. The second part offers theological perspectives on the relationship between evolutionary and theological anthropology and between evolution and religion. The volume also reflects more broadly on the complex relationship between religion and science in the contexts of late-modern societies. It makes a significant contribution to the religion and science debate and offers performative evidence that an interdisciplinary discussion between theologians, philosophers, and natural scientists is feasible.
1 Introduction
Martin Breul and Caroline Helmus
2 Some Thoughts on Evolution, Culture, and Religion
Michael Tomasello
Part I The Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Anthropology
3 Michael Tomasello’s Vision of Human Uniqueness and the Place of Human Religion
Wesley Wildman
4 How Transcendental Aristotelianism can integrate Tomasello’s Natural History of Morality
Christian Illies
5 Pointing as Intending. On the Social and Cognitive Significance of Deictic Communication
Henning Tegtmeyer
Part II Theological Perspectives on Evolutionary Anthropology
6 The Nature of Humanity and the Origins of Religion: Contributions from Michael Tomasello
Marcia Pally
7 Tomasello and Kant. Religious Faith and the Evolution of Morality––Empirical Support for
Kant’s ‘Postulates of Practical Reason’?
Martin Breul
8 Embodied Image of God. Evolutionary Anthropology in Theological Perspective
Gregor Etzelmüller
9 Cultural Learning, Embodiment and Relationality in Evolutionary and Theological
Anthropology
Caroline Helmus
Part III Broadening the View: Further Reflections on Religion, Science, and Modernity
10 Deficiency Guarantee? Jürgen Habermas on the Anthropological and Evolutionary Function
of the Sacred Complex
Thomas M. Schmidt
11 Between Relevance and Redundancy. Thoughts on the Profile of Theology in the Ever
-Accelerating Late Modernity
Anne Weber
12 Excess and Evolution. The Transgressive Sources of (R)Evolution
Sarah Rosenhauer
Biography
Martin Breul is Substitute Professor of Systematic Theology at the Institute of Catholic Theology, the University of Dortmund, Germany.
Caroline Helmus is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Catholic Theology, the University of Tübingen, Germany.
